were bereft even of their last inhabitant. Thus far the ordinary
circumstances only of the oriental plague occurred. Still deeper
sufferings, however, were connected with this pestilence, such as
have not been felt at other times; the organs of respiration were
seized with a putrid inflammation; a violent pain in the chest
attacked the patient; blood was expectorated, and the breath
diffused a pestiferous odour.

In the West, the following were the predominating symptoms on the
eruption of this disease. An ardent fever, accompanied by an
evacuation of blood, proved fatal in the first three days. It
appears that buboes and inflammatory boils did not at first come
out at all, but that the disease, in the form of carbuncular
(anthrax-artigen) affection of the lungs, effected the destruction
of life before the other symptoms were developed.

Thus did the plague rage in Avignon for six or eight weeks, and
the pestilential breath of the sick, who expectorated blood,
caused a terrible contagion far and near; for even the vicinity of
those who had fallen ill of plague was certain death; so that
parents abandoned their infected children, and all the ties of
kindred were dissolved. After this period, buboes in the axilla
and in the groin, and inflammatory boils all over the body, made
their appearance; but it was not until seven months afterwards
that some patients recovered with matured buboes, as in the
ordinary milder form of plague.

Such is the report of the courageous Guy de Chauliac, who
vindicated the honour of medicine, by bidding defiance to danger;
boldly and constantly assisting the affected, and disdaining the